Current Stories

AMD Bulldozer desktop chips delayed to October

This is not yet confirmed by AMD, but all signals seem to point that this info is accurate.

It seems that the launch of the FX-series chips has been pushed to mid-October as management wanted to make the launch lineup "broader and more competitive". Seven Zambezi CPUs are expected to arrive in Q4 2011, with more models expected to follow by February 2012.

In a bid to improve competitive positions of its FX-series "Zambezi" lineup due to become available in the fourth quarter of this year, AMD decided to broaden it to seven models: four eight-core FX-8100 versions, one FX-6100 flavour and two FX-4100 central processing units, according to a source close to the company, which asked to remain anonymous. The increased amount of SKUs [stock keeping units] will help AMD to better position its models and make them appealing to particular customers with unique needs.

In addition to the model FX-8120 (which will be available in 95W and 125W flavours), which fills the gap between the FX-8100 and FX-8150 and allows AMD to broader the lineup of expensive eight core-chips, AMD also plans to introduce high-speed quad-core FX-4170, which will have default clock-speed of 4.20GHz and will thus offer extreme performance for its price-point.

MSI: Gigabyte motherboard are not PCIe Gen 3 ready

There's a bit of a mud fight inbetween MSI and Gigabyte as it seems. In short Gigabyte all of the sudden claims that many of their motherboard already are PCIe Gen 3 compatible.

MSI's marketing department has created a series of slides to rebut Gigabyte's claim that its motherboards are PCI Express 3.0 ready. The company claims that out of as many as 40 of Gigabyte's PCIe Gen 3 ready motherboards, only the G1.Sniper 2 is really ready for PCIe 3.0.

MSI begins by explaining that PCIe support isn't as easy as laying a wire between the CPU and the slot. It needs specifications-compliant lane switches and electrical components, and that you can't count on certain Gigabytes for future-proofing. MSI did some PCI-Express electrical testing using a 22 nm Ivy Bridge processor sample.

MSI claims that apart from the G1.Sniper 2, none of Gigabyte's so-called "Ready for Native PCIe Gen. 3" motherboards are what the badge claims to be, and that the badge is extremely misleading to buyers.

Check out the slides:

Powned ? :)

AMD Ships First 'Bulldozer' Processors

AMD announced revenue shipments of the first processors based on its new x86 "Bulldozer" architecture. Initial production of the world's first 16-core x86 processor, codenamed "Interlagos," began in August and shipping to customers is already underway.

Compatible with existing AMD OpteronTM 6100 Series platforms and infrastructure, "Interlagos" is expected to launch and be available in partner systems in the fourth quarter of this year. Many of the initial shipments have been earmarked for large custom supercomputer installations that are now underway.

Hard Reset Demo Available

Flying Wild Hog has released a playable demo for Hard Reset, a dark sci-fi first-person shooter developed for PC and set to be available on September 13 via Steam. The demo contains a good portion of the first level, offering about 20-30 minutes of play time and a good amount of replayability thanks to a wide range of weapon options (12 of 20 weapon modes are included) and, of course, Hard Reset's secret areas and general mayhem.

ASUS Maximus IV Extreme Z review

ASUS completed its range of Z68 products as well, and the one that rules them all is probably the board as tested today. The Republic of Gamers team applied their typical bunch of lovin' and sweetness to the motherboard, driving the feature count up and the tweaking performance to new heights. Yes, the Maximus IV Extreme-Z Intel Z68 motherboard has arrived at the Guru3D test grounds all the way up the highlands of Holland.

And gosh golly, this product is absolutely stunning. Read the Guru3D review right here.

EIZO outs 23in 16W LCD screens

Eizo Nanao Corporation today introduced two 23-inch full HD (1920 x 1080 native resolution) monitors for trading rooms, back offices, and other business environments, the FlexScan EV2335W and FlexScan EV2315W. These models are the latest in EIZO?fs ?gEcoView?h line of ecological, ergonomic and energy-efficient monitors. They both feature white LED backlights which are mercury free and reduce power consumption to just 16 watts during typical use.

The FlexScan EV2335W uses an IPS (in-plane switching) panel with 178?

ASUS E45M1-M PRO Micro-ATX Fusion motherboard surfaces

ASUS shows off the E45M1-M PRO, a new Fusion motherboard with AMD's E-450 APU.

Motherboard major ASUS unveiled a new micro-ATX motherboard based on the AMD E-450 accelerated processing unit (APU), the E45M1-M PRO. This board is nearly identical to the E35M1-M PRO, except of course its faster APU. The AMD E-450 is clocked at 1.65 GHz, a mere 50 MHz jump over the E-350, but the real improvement here is that the GPU core speed that jumps to 600 MHz thanks to TurboCore technology.

The E35M1-M PRO is a micro-ATX motherboard measuring 244 x 183 mm. It is powered by AMD E-450 Fusion "Zacate" processor platform, aided by AMD Hudson M1 chipset. The platform offers a wealth of connectivity and performance per Watt for its price. The E-450 APU and Hudson M1 chipset are cooled by a common low-profile heatsink, an optional fan can be attached to it for better cooling. A 3-phase VRM powers the APU, which is goverened by an ASUS EPU chip that works to improve energy efficiency. The APU is wired to two DDR3 DIMM slots that support single-channel DDR3 memory with speeds of up to 1333 MHz.

Hitachi first 1TB per platter HDD

Hitachi introduced its first 1TB one-platter HDD. As the first to ship a multi-disk 1TB hard disk drive (HDD) in 2007, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) today announced that is has achieved yet another 1TB milestone by squeezing it on a single disk. Leveraging the company

New AMD Zambezi and Llano rumors

The chaps over at Tech Report came across a new batch AMD rumors. The quad-core FX-4120 is expected to hit the market in 2012, this 4.2GHz chip's TDP has reportedly been raised from 95W to 125W. Additionally, it's also reported that AMD's A4-3400 and A4-3300 will be out before the end of the year.

The FX-4120 should be the highest-clocked member of the Zambezi family. The chip will reportedly have a 4.2GHz base clock speed with a 4.3GHz Turbo peak. The flagship FX-8150, which has twice the number of cores, is supposed to run at 3.6GHz with a 4.2GHz Turbo ceiling. Thanks to its higher clock speeds, the FX-4120 may deliver better gaming performance than the 8150, which would be one reason to bring it out early. The small 100MHz gap between the CPU's base and Turbo clock speeds make me a little dubious about the veracity of the leaked specifications, though. The 4120 doesn't appear on the list of FX processors leaked last week in a Gigabyte motherboard compatibility document, either.

If Llano is more your speed, Donanim Haber has what looks like new information on A4-series APUs destined for desktops. According to the site, the A4-3400 and 3300 are both due out before the end of the year. These duallies will run their cores at 2.7 and 2.5GHz, respectively, and they'll both carry 65W thermal ratings.

MS to be able to 'find the location of every WP device in the world'

Microsoft has posted up a new job listing that states it is looking for an individual to help them track every single Windows Phone device even without the aid of GPS. This job description comes in contrast to a recent statement where they denied tracking claims in a recent class action lawsuit. The posting went live on Microsoft's career search page today and indicates that they want an individual to help track their Windows Phone devices all over the world. The posting is clear and to the point by stating:

The team is looking for highly motivated, extremely intelligent, and deeply technical people to build the core location service platform. We are tasked with delivering a highly scalable service to find the location of every Windows Phone device in the world, either by assisting GPS, or by using signal-analysis techniques to compute location where GPS cannot. You will work closely with MSR and other research groups to improve our algorithms for mining large amounts of data using Bayesian analysis and other machine learning techniques. We have incredibly hard problems to solve in the coming year such as solving the indoor positioning problem as well as motion detection and relevance based positioning.

The service could be similar to the "Find my iPhone" that Apple currently uses to find lost or stolen iPhones. This is speculation only at this point as the job description does not indicate that would be the purpose for this type of service.

Millions Copies of Dirt 3 keys leaked onto web

Publishers Codemasters and graphics card manufacturer AMD have been running a promotion lately whereby purchasers of a card got a free copy of excellent racer Dirt 3. That offer has now been, uh, slightly expanded, says Kokatu. here's a CC from their post:

It seems Codemasters had the reserved download codes for the promo - estimated at around 3 million copies of the game - sitting on one of its webservers in plain sight, and over the past couple of days that list has been accessed and passed around, giving anyone who has seen it a free copy of Dirt 3.

While this might seem like an online looter's Christmas come early, there's a catch: the codes are Steam codes, meaning that should Codemasters (or Valve) decide to take action, all they'd need to do would be to go down the list and block the codes for the game. And that's a best-case scenario for "thieves", one that doesn't involve banning.

UPDATE - While it was initially believed that up to 2 million codes had been leaked, I've since taken a look at the master list that was lifted, and what I saw contained "only" 250,000 copies of the game. Now, I may have only seen one list, or an incomplete list, but I'm updating this here for the record anyway!

HWiNFO 3.86 released

HWiNFO is a professional hardware information and diagnostic tools supporting latest components, industry technologies and standards. Both tools are targeted to recognize and extract the most possible amount of information about computer's hardware which makes them suitable for users searching for driver updates, computer manufactures, system integrators and technical experts too.

AMD Catalyst Application Profile - 11.8 CAP3 available

This release of ATI Catalyst delivers support for the latest ATI CrossFireX profiles in a separate executable file ensuring users have access to the absolute latest set of profiles installed on their PC.

New profiles added to this release:

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine

NEC MultiSync P Series P241W Desktop Monitors

NEC Display Solutions of America, a leading provider of commercial LCD display and projector solutions, announced today the first model in the new generation of the MultiSync P Series with the 24-inch widescreen MultiSync P241W desktop monitor and added the P241W-BK-SV to the renowned SpectraView II Series.

Ideal for web graphics and photography applications, the P241W utilizes an e-IPS panel for great imaging performance. This sRGB monitor offers users working in color-critical environments the opportunity to take advantage of professional-grade desktop display features without breaking budgets. Its widescreen real estate, USB hub with DisplaySync Pro and completely customizable Picture Modes greatly improve user productivity.

The P241W-BK-SV features hardware color calibration using the NEC SpectraView kit to deliver accurate color in a simple to use and affordable package. The kit, which is compatible with both Apple Mac and Microsoft Windows operating systems, includes an optimized calibration sensor based on the highly acclaimed X-Rite Eye-One Display2 and award-winning SpectraViewII calibration software. To learn more about how to calibrate your NEC display with SpectraViewII, watch this YouTube video from Art Marshall, Product Manager for Professional and Medical Displays at NEC Display Solutions.

"The new MultiSync P Series combines reliable, accurate screen performance with all the cutting-edge technology included in the MultiSync PA Series at a budget-friendly price," said Marshall. "One of the more unique features of the P241W is the ability to utilize two computers simultaneously through DisplaySync Pro and the integrated USB hub, which functions as a KVM device. This capability is invaluable to graphics professionals, and we're excited to introduce this feature into the MultiSync P Series."

Intel injected 16 new CPUs over the weekend

Intel has released 16 new 32nm processors, including Core, Pentium and Celeron branded chips.

As seen in the tablet below, Intel released eleven desktop chips, the 'highest-end' being the 3.0 GHz Core i5-2320, and five mobile CPUs, including the new flagship that is the 2.7 GHz Core i72960XM. Prices go from $1,096 down to $47 so there's something for everyone. Everyone not waiting for AMD's FX-Series line, of course.

The Core i3-2125 is interesting as it is clocked similar to the i3-2120 at 3.30 GHz, but it might be tweaked in other parameters (such as GPU clock speed, feature-set, etc). Core i3-2120T is a new low-power desktop chip, that's clocked at 2.60 GHz, and nearly half the rated TDP, at 35W.

There's also a trio of Pentium-branded dual-core chips, including the G630T, G860, and G630, clocked at 2.30 GHz, 3.00 GHz, and 2.70 GHz, displacing the G620T, G850, and G620, respectively. Anyway, have a peek at the list.

Cooler Master Storm Trooper on September 27

Cooler Master's Storm Trooper full-tower case will hit the market on September 27th, apparantly many of you are wondering. This case has already been shown off at a number of trade shows, so not sure why they aren't showing images of the Storm Trooper! Here is a shot of the case at Gamescom 2011 over in Europe from last month.

Personally, myself I am wondering more about the new Cosmos chassis ;)